"He's... he's resting on me," Charmy whispered to herself, a massive, goofy, utterly euphoric smile spreading across her face. She settled back into the cotton, perfectly content to let the ruined city burn around them as long as her food was safe and the Prince of Meals was sleeping peacefully in her lap.
Down in the dark, debris-choked alleyways near the base of the tower, Lencar stepped out from the deep shadows of an overhanging balcony.
He had followed Yuno's wind trail, navigating the chaotic streets with his camouflage artifact still fully engaged. He had watched the brief, bizarre exchange through the gaping hole in the masonry above.
Lencar tilted his disguised head, letting out a soft, muted breath of sheer amusement.
"Yuno is as ridiculous as ever," Lencar muttered quietly, shaking his head. To awaken a legendary elemental spirit, defeat a veteran operative of the Eye of the Midnight Sun, and then immediately pass out in the lap of a food-obsessed girl from the Black Bulls... it was a sequence of events so absurd it could only belong to a protagonist.
But Lencar didn't linger on the comedic scene playing out above him. The kids had had their victory, but the battlefield was still littered with uncollected resources.
Lencar shifted his focus away from the gaping hole in the dining hall and moved toward the base of the shattered stone pillar where Catherine had been initially thrown. He knew she hadn't remained in the dining hall. The impact of the giant cotton sheep had been devastating, sending her crashing through the floorboards and tumbling down into the lower, ruined levels of the tower's annex.
He navigated the rubble, his boots making absolutely no sound as he stepped over broken glass and scorched wood. He kept his Concealment Magic fully active, ensuring that neither the sleeping Yuno, the distracted Charmy, nor the tiny Wind Spirit would sense his approach.
He found Catherine lying in a dark, dust-choked corridor on the second floor of the annex.
He navigated the rubble, his boots making absolutely no sound as he stepped over broken glass and scorched wood. He kept his Concealment Magic fully active, ensuring that neither the sleeping Yuno, the distracted Charmy, nor the tiny Wind Spirit would sense his approach.
He found Catherine lying in a dark, dust-choked corridor on the second floor of the annex.
She was a pitiful sight. The glamorous, terrifying witch who had rained cursed ash upon the capital was gone. She lay crumpled on her side, her dark purple dress torn and covered in plaster dust. Without the constant influx of stolen mana to maintain her illusion of youth, her true age had returned with a vengeance. Her skin was deeply wrinkled, her hair a brittle, thinning gray, and her breathing was ragged and shallow. She was deeply, entirely unconscious, her body broken by the blunt force trauma of Charmy's attack.
Lencar stopped a few feet away from her. He needed to work quickly, and he needed absolute privacy.
He raised his hand, his fingers glowing with the familiar, iridescent shimmer of Illusion Magic. He cast the spell over the immediate area, weaving a mirage around Catherine's body. He bent the light and the shadows, projecting the image of a collapsed, empty pile of brick and splintered timber over her physical form. If any Magic Knights flew past the broken windows, or if a rescue squad swept the corridor, they would look right past her, seeing nothing but the mundane wreckage of the battle.
With the visual cover secured, Lencar crouched down beside the unconscious witch.
Her grimoire lay in the dust a few inches from her withered hand. It was closed, the cover a dull, ashen gray, etched with strange, swirling patterns that looked like drifting smoke and dying embers. It radiated a faint, sickly feeling—the lingering resonance of magic designed solely to parasite off the life force of others.
Lencar didn't hesitate. He reached into his cloak and withdrew his own grimoire. The plain, brown leather book felt heavy with the weight of the countless attributes he had already integrated.
He placed his grimoire directly on top of Catherine's gray book. The covers touched, leather grinding against leather in the quiet, dusty corridor.
Lencar closed his eyes beneath his synthetic mask. He focused his intent, channeling his mana into the connection between the two magical vessels.
Replication Magic: Absolute Replication.
He shouted the command in his mind, feeling the familiar, violent wrench at the base of his skull.
The physical world of ruined stone, burning timber, and distant screams vanished instantly. The sensory input of the Royal Capital was stripped away, replaced by the profound, chilling emptiness of the transition.
Lencar opened his eyes in the Soul Realm.
He was floating in the vast, infinite expanse of swirling silver mist. It was a place of absolute silence and profound isolation. He looked down at his own form. He appeared as a translucent, pale blue, spectral version of himself—not the disguised, slouched commoner he was pretending to be on the outside, but his true, broad-shouldered, heavily scarred physique.
He turned his spectral gaze forward, looking for the soul he had tethered.
Catherine's soul was suspended in the mist a few yards away.
Lencar drifted closer, his mind preparing to categorize her elemental frequency and locate the soul gem that housed her Ash Magic. But as he got a clear look at her spiritual form, he stopped entirely, a deep, profound sense of shock rippling through his spectral projection.
He had expected her soul to match the withered, elderly state her physical body had reverted to. He had seen the souls of bandits, smugglers, and mercenaries, and they typically mirrored the wear and tear of their physical vessels.
But Catherine's soul didn't just look old. It looked utterly, horrifically ruined.
Her spiritual form was not a solid, cohesive entity. It was fraying at the edges, shedding pieces of itself into the silver mist like burning paper turning to ash. The core of her soul, where the bright, vibrant light of a mage's identity should have burned, was a dull, sickly, rotting gray. Deep, jagged fissures ran across her spectral face and chest, leaking a dark, miasmic sludge.
She looked less like a human soul and more like an ancient, decaying corpse that had been left to rot in the sun for a thousand years. She was spiritually starving, hollowed out from the inside.
Lencar floated there in the silence, staring at the horrifying deterioration.
What happened to her? Lencar thought, his mind racing to process the visual data. Her physical body is old, yes, but it is still functional. Her soul... Her soul is on the verge of complete collapse. It's crumbling.
He analyzed the mechanics of the magic he had witnessed her using in the plaza. Cursed Ash Magic. Sensation Deflation. Spells designed to steal the youth, vitality, and mana from other human beings. She had consumed the life force of countless victims to maintain her smooth skin and her aristocratic beauty.
But as Lencar observed the rotting, shredded state of her spirit, a chilling, deeply unsettling realization dawned on him.
The magic she used was a lie. Or, at the very least, a horrifyingly flawed transaction.